The Acrobats

  “I’ll hold him until you finish your coffee.”

  He rocked the baby to and fro in his arms. He felt awkward, ashamed also. He tried hard to visualise the baby as some day being a man but he could not see it.

  “You are funny with the baby.”

  He smiled sternly. He had meant to laugh, but Toni was huddled on a pillow in a corner of the room and her presence had inhibited him. Her eyes were sad and moist. Her face had in it a new quality of pain or maturity and she was huddled in such a way that it seemed her intention was to repudiate the beauty of her body.

  Toni had stayed up most of the night waiting for Guillermo. She had not heard from him since he had said that he was going down to the river, and that had been two days ago.

  “You will make a good father,” María said. “Here, give him to his mother.”

  He lay the baby down beside her. He was so wrinkled and pink. Luís thought he was very ugly.

  “Little Jeem André José Villian-Rodríguez.”

  “I saw him today,” Luís said. He smiled at Toni and Toni smiled back at him.

  “When?” María asked.

  “This afternoon, in Cosmi’s.”

  “Was he sober?”

  “Well he wasn’t drunk. I mean he looked much better.”

  “Did you tell him about the child?”

  “Yes. I also told him that you were staying here with me.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He feels badly about not having a job. He, I think he’s sick. I told him, I said, you have a son. I knew it would be a boy, he said. But the expression on his face never changed. Aren’t you pleased? I said. Why should I be pleased? he said. If he is any good they will get him like they got the others. And if he is going to be bad I do not want him.”

  “Is he coming home?”

  “He didn’t say. We had a long talk though.”

  “Yes?”

  “I couldn’t understand most of it. All that talk about harmonicas! I don’t think he has eaten a meal since he found out Why is it always the good ones, again and again, he said that to me. I tried to reason with him. I told him that if a man thinks too much he goes crazy. Why? Why? All the time he wants to know why.”

  “You are a good friend to him.”

  Luís grinned shyly. “We fought together.”

  Luís had also told Pepe about how troubled he had been ever since that afternoon in Fräulein Kraus’s house. He had told him that the only reason why he had not made love to her that day had been that she was ugly, and that had worried him so much that he had hardly slept since that day.

  Suddenly Luís remembered something. He turned to Toni. “André once told me that politics didn’t interest him as such. He said it was poverty that was ugly, and that so-called justice was beside the point. He said that the poor must have more because they were human and no human should be ugly.”

  Toni smiled. “It’s all right,” she said. “I was in love with him. I like it when you talk about him.”

  “Does Pepe still not believe that he committed suicide?” María asked.

  “He says André would never do it.”

  “Poor Pepe.”

  “They arrested most of the gang. It looks bad for them. They were wearing his clothes. There were bruises on the body.”

  “They didn’t kill him,” Toni said.

  “What do you think, María?”

  “I do not think. I pray.”

  “Do you pray for Pepe?”

  “Yes.”

  Luís laughed. So did Toni.

  “Why is it funny?”

  “Does he know?”

  “No.”

  “I should tell him. That would make him laugh.”

  Pepe entered the room very quietly and they did not hear him come in. His eyes were red and his lips were dry, but he was sober and he had shaved and shined his shoes.

  “Pepe!”

  “They got Guillermo before I even got a chance to talk to him.”

  Toni bit her lip. She squeezed her belly in anger. I will kill him, she thought. I will invite him up to my room and stab him.

  “What’s the charge?” Luís asked.

  “Barcelona. Also, they know about his pamphlets.”

  “But he is usually so careful. How did they get him?”

  “It was an accident. There was a meeting but it had been called off. Guillermo didn’t know, he hadn’t seen the others. He arrived late with another man and they were both arrested.”

  “He’s a good man.”

  “Yes.” Pepe turned to Toni. “There is a special letter for you at Cosmi’s. It’s from Chaim. Cosmi got word to him.”

  Luís got up. “Come, Toni. We’ll go to Cosmi’s.”

  Toni looked as if she was going to protest. Her face was hot with grief. She grabbed her belly. “I …” She stopped short. “He had no skin. Only blood!”

  Luís helped her up. She looked at him imploringly and he blushed. “I don’t know what to say,” he said.

  She kissed him. “You are good, Luís. You …”

  Pepe turned to Luís. “Bring her right back. She’ll eat with us. Chaim is making arrangements. Meanwhile … Well, bring her right back.”

  Luís nodded. “Until later,” he said.

  As soon as they had left, Pepe laughed nervously.

  “How are you?” María asked.

  “All right. And you?”

  “All right.”

  “It is very hot again,” he said.

  “Isn’t that one of his pictures?”

  “Yes.”

  “He never finished it.”

  She held up the baby to him.

  “May I kiss him?”

  “Yes.”

  “He looks fine.” Pepe laughed shyly. “I’m glad now. He looks wonderful.”

  “Take him.”

  “No, I’m too clumsy. You hold him.”

  She held the baby to her naked breast. He found the nipple and began to suck greedily. “He has a good appetite,” she said.

  “When do they start to talk?”

  “Not for a long time.”

  “I want to talk to him. He is my son. I will teach him how to play on a harmonica.”

  She laughed.

  Pepe sat down on the bed. “María, I’m all right. Everything is going to be all right. I’ll get another job. Don’t worry.”

  “I’m not worried.”

  AFTERWARDS

  CHAIM ASKED Marcel for another cognac.

  The sky was bulging with clouds. The first rains of autumn were threatening. Chaim was pleased. He enjoyed Paris in the rain. It did something for the streets.

  It was almost eight, time for apéritifs. The terrace of the Café de Flore was crowded. The unknowing young, also their defeated elders, chattered at their tables, all looking smartly anonymous. Not yet honestly disillusioned but pretending, they idled with such intensity so as to defeat idleness itself. Along the pavement, in front of the terrace, the homosexuals passed. Always their eyes stricken, their lips waiting, as if there must be a friend or at least an enemy on the terrace, not just the others, also waiting, also pretending to be late for an appointment, not only more neurotic laughter, more sobbing in dim corners, more pink gins.

  “Hey, Chaim! How about buying me another cognac?”

  “Okay, Sam. But don’t say I didn’t warn you. You’re going to die of mal au foie. Everybody in France does.”

  Sam looked brown and healthy. He had just returned from the Côte d’Azur, where he had spent a happy summer loafing in the sun. Not always loafing, for Sam had found time to finish his thesis. He was a young, surprisingly energetic man, and Chaim imagined he wrote well. He was big and athletic, usually smiling or laughing, always as if he thought everything was part of a tremendous joke.

  “Let’s go to the races tomorrow, Chaim. David will drive us out.”

  “Okay. That sounds like fun.”

  There were many posters on the walls. Most of them advertised exhibitio
ns, but one was a travel poster. It read: VISIT ROME – The scene of MGM’s Quo Vadisl

  “Toni should be here soon,” Sam said.

  “Where are they?”

  “She took the kid to the jardins.” He looked at his watch. “They should be home by now. She won’t be long. Does she know yet?”

  “No.”

  “Are you going to tell her now?”

  “Why not?”

  “If you like I’ll go. I mean if you want to be alone with her.”

  “No. Don’t be silly.”

  “What are you going to do in Italy?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve got many friends there. Maybe I’ll open up a bar again? I’m tired of translating dirty novels by kids who took a course on it in college. A bar would be fun.”

  “Open up a bar in Venice, Chaim. We’ll all come out and live with you.”

  “Soak Paris in a tub of stagnant water for maybe a thousand years and you’ve got Venice. I don’t like it. It’s too much like a collapsed lung. I think I’ll go to Florence.”

  “Stop off on the Côte, Chaim. You drink pink wines all morning and sleep all afternoon. Cagnes is short on heteros, the last one they had committed suicide in July. There’s an opening you could walk right into!”

  “What are you being so goddam happy about?”

  Sam took a tremendous puff of his cigar. Frowning, he appeared almost silly. He was a naturally happy person. “I want to marry Toni,” he said. “Is that okay?”

  “Why shouldn’t it be okay?”

  But Chaim had learnt only recently of Sam’s attachment to Toni. He had had an inkling of what was coming when Sam had become a regular client of the Bar Andalucia, where Toni danced and sang flamencos. Sam was all right. He was a hopeful man, optimistic, and with the finest of the American qualities. Chaim had approved, but Toni still lapsed into despondency on slight provocation and Chaim had wanted to be more certain still before he committed himself. He felt that he should be cautious. What if Sam was only interested in having an affair? Yes, that’s Sam’s business, Chaim thought. But Toni might not be able to take it.

  “What about the other guy? I know he’s dead, but … Look, Chaim, did he commit suicide or was he murdered?”

  “What does she say?”

  “She’s damned evasive.”

  “He, well, he was murdered. But he committed suicide too.”

  “What happened to the guy who did it?”

  “He’s in Western Germany now. He’s very important these days. He’s in on this European Army business.”

  “Oh!”

  “Are you disappointed in me? Do you think I should have fixed him?”

  “That’s your business.”

  André was a casualty. Kraus killed him, but not for himself, he was the instrument of us all. Killing Kraus would prove nothing. In fact, you might as well get this through your head now. Nothing is ever resolved, hut it’s always worth it. If André had been a little smarter and a bit less emotional he might still be around. He’s dead, and that’s too bad. He might have been a great painter, he might have been a lot of things. Unfortunately he died before he reached maturity.

  “He was a pretty fine person, eh, Chaim?”

  “You saw the pictures that were saved.”

  “Do you resent me? I mean Toni …”

  “All I ask is that you be good to her. I’ll send you my address. If you need anything, write immediately. Also you must always be good to the child. That’s extremely important.”

  “She didn’t want to have it.”

  “She wanted it to be born dead. Thank God she’s over that now. But you must be careful.”

  “Who’s child is it? It’s not his.”

  “If you marry her it’s yours. If not, don’t marry her.”

  “Okay. Just as you say.”

  “Here she is.”

  Toni kissed Chaim cheerfully and sat down. But he could see that something was wrong. Her eyes were red.

  “I’ll go and get the waiter,” Sam said. “I’ll be right back.”

  She handed Chaim a clipping. There was an old photo of Guillermo, and a story in underneath. He, and several others, were going on trial shortly. The prosecution was demanding the death penalty.

  “I know,” Chaim said. “I saw it yesterday.”

  “What will we do?”

  “Things are already being done. There will be foreign observers at the trial. It doesn’t mean much but at least he won’t be hanged. I got him word. I offered to get him out of the country as soon as he was released. He doesn’t want to come.”

  “Are you sure he won’t be shot?”

  “Yes. How’s André?”

  “All right, he’s sleeping.”

  “Good.”

  “Chaim, let me change his name. He’s beginning to look more and more like Kraus.”

  “Toni, stop it.”

  “I can’t help it. When things like this happen it starts all over again.”

  “You’re getting married, child. You’ll be happy.”

  “Do you like him?”

  She knew that Sam was after Chaim’s approval and she was immensely pleased about it. Pleased, and somewhat concerned. It would be difficult (André would have said “ugly,” she thought pleasurably) if Chaim didn’t consent.

  “Very much.”

  “I don’t like the people who come to this café,” she said suddenly.

  “Toni, I’m going away. I’m going to Italy.”

  “Is it your passport again?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, Chaim.”

  “You write me every week. Next summer you can both come out. I’ll have a house for you. But only for the summer. You are going to be a married woman and you have your own life to lead.”

  “Chaim! Where will you go from Italy? How many more countries?”

  “If I didn’t like it I wouldn’t do it. You decide to live in a certain way and you know what it’s going to cost you. It’s worth it. I like it.”

  “Chaim, is there any hope?”

  “Yes, child. Of course there is.”

  “Is there?”

  “There is always hope. Always. There has to be.”

  Afterword

  BY TED KOTCHEFF

  I have a great deal of affection for The Acrobats, for it was responsible for two of the closest friendships of my life.

  In 1955, I was directing live television drama for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Nathan Cohen was a story editor in the drama department. He is now almost forgotten, certainly under-appreciated, as I think that he was one of the few critics that attempted, through the feuilleton he published, The Broadsheet, to raise the level of cultural activity in Canada and judge it by the highest standards. One day, Nathan came into my office carrying a slim volume, The Acrobats, by a new young Canadian writer, Mordecai Richler, and urged me to read it. He said it was quite a precocious performance, and was now corresponding with the author to obtain the television rights. Further, he thought that when I went to Europe I should look him up. He thought that Mordecai and I had similar sensibilities, and was certain that he and I would become good friends. I do not know what he based this prophecy on but, of course, his intuition turned out to be completely accurate.

  I read the book and was deeply impressed by its sophistication and great seriousness. That it was written by a nineteen-year-old was hard to believe. It was so assured; this was no tentative voice. He knew exactly what he was doing. It was brash and unashamed. “I may not know where I am going,” he was saying, “but I am a novelist.” It was certainly a young man’s book, full of passion and romanticism. Youthful romanticism is commonplace. What was not commonplace was Mordecai’s attempt to deal with profound issues both moral and political. Mordecai and I were almost exact contemporaries, and he was dealing with concerns that were exercising me at that time.

  Mordecai did the adaptation of The Acrobats himself, condensing it into an hour-long television play, which was produced l
ive by the CBC on January 13, 1957. Until recently, television had little sense of its historical value: important materials were dumped, priceless tapes were wiped to be used again. So it was with little hope that I had my brother Tim make inquiries to see if the CBC had any record of this production. Thrillingly, there was in existence an old kinescope of the show, the first production of one of Mordecai’s works. The CBC generously gave me a video copy of this buried treasure. Aside from one or two interesting performances, the show is not successful. But then imagine trying to recreate Valencia in Studio “A” on Jarvis Street in Toronto. What stands out is Mordecai’s adaptation. Most writers have problems adapting their own work, never being able to achieve the necessary objectivity. But one sees in this first foray into writing for television that Mordecai was a natural. Later he would blossom into a first-rate screenwriter.

  The following summer, I went to the south of France. Mordecai was living in a village, Tourettes-sur-Loup, nestled in the Alpes-Maritimes. We drank in the town’s only bar, a café with tables set up in the town’s small square. Mordecai was taciturn, watchful, rabbinical. I did most of the talking. There was not much indication of the wit that he possessed, though at one point he asked me who my favourite novelist was. I answered, somewhat pretentiously, “Henry James.” “Then you’ll be right at home with my novels, won’t you.” We chuckled and kept drinking.

  I spent a week in Tourettes. Mordecai and I drank together when we could. We would gaze at each other in quiet assessment. As Mordecai wrote to me later, we discovered that we were “horses of the same colour.” We had similar slummy backgrounds, the identical coarse adolescence. Our fathers were the same, foolish but endearing losers – his, a failed scrap dealer, mine, a milkman and failed hash slinger. How in the world did we have the ambition to become a novelist and a film director?

  At the age of nineteen, a cocksure Mordecai dropped out of Sir George Williams College, cashed in a small insurance policy, and, with his Royal Portable tucked under his arm, left Canada and set out for Europe, determined to become a novelist. Ours was probably the last generation to be in the grip of that Hemingway-Fitzgerald romanticism, the fantasy that, in order to become good at any artistic activity, one had to go to Europe. Certainly, as Robert Fulford put it, we felt we had “to graduate from Canada.” In 1950, the literary landscape in Canada was barren. I took a course in Canadian and American literature at the University of Toronto in 1948: one hour on a Morley Callaghan novel, one hour on a Hugh MacLennan novel, two or three hours on a few decent weekend poets, and that was it. Certainly, there was little in Canada for a budding writer to build on.